


the fine art of crossed lines

by jaekyu



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Exes, Getting Back Together, M/M, Misunderstandings, Weddings, in which Lee Jihoon meddles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-10
Updated: 2020-09-10
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:14:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26176303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jaekyu/pseuds/jaekyu
Summary: Not long ago, Seungcheol had supposed that the next wedding he would be attending would be his own. Funny how that works.*Jihoon is getting married and it really should just be that simple, but then Wonwoo is there — and that’s where things get complicated.
Relationships: Choi Seungcheol | S.Coups/Jeon Wonwoo, Minor Kim Mingyu/Lee Jihoon | Woozi - Relationship, Past Choi Seungcheol | S.Coups/Lee Jihoon | Woozi - Relationship
Comments: 18
Kudos: 122
Collections: Coup de Cœur - Round 1





	the fine art of crossed lines

**Author's Note:**

> this prompt was soooo up my alley that i needed to get into it, so i hope whoever prompted it enjoys this! i haven't written seventeen in awhile so i also hope that this, like, isn't totally out of pocket. but also it's rpf. so w/e.
> 
> thank you alex for reading this over! as per usual!

the fine art of crossed lines  
crossed for old times  
like starting over

[ . . . ]

the steps I take to get back to you  
— CHAMPIONS OF RED WINE, **The New Pornographers.**

*

**0.**

The invitation arrives in Seungcheol’s mailbox the way you might catch a stray coin sitting on the street from the corner of your eye; almost as an afterthought, doubling back to see if it’s really worth the effort of engaging with.

He takes in the blocky letters that spell out his own name and address. He takes in, in the corner, the return address. Seungcheol furrows his brow. He’s still standing in the hallway, outside of his apartment. He takes out his phone. He dials a number he had thought he would have forgotten by now, but the muscles in his finger seem to recall just fine.

Jihoon picks up on the third ring.

Seungcheol does not say hello. Instead, he begins with, “you’re getting married?”

Jihoon, ever unflappable, responds simply: “Yeah. Did you want to R.S.V.P?”

For context’s sake: Seungcheol and Jihoon dated in their first year of university, for roughly six months. It was Seungcheol’s first relationship post-moving out on his own and his first significant relationship with. Well. Not a girl.

(The realization — that he liked girls, yeah, and he liked boys too — had hit him the final year of high school. Back then he had felt the same way everyone does in high school: overly concerned with this very specific chapter of his life, that felt all-consuming and the most important, despite the fact that this would later be proven wrong. He lacked most experiences with girls, had no experience with boys, and felt so awkward in his own body he’d fixate on it for hours. So, needless to say, the realization happened in high school, but nothing was put into practice until Seungcheol moved out and started college.

Jihoon was not the first guy he hooked up with, and not even the first one he hooked up with in college, but he came into Seungcheol’s life when this whole thing was still brand new for him. And then, of course, one thing led to another and —)

It ended because it was always going to. Because in the predetermination that was Seungcheol’s life (and, more immediately obvious, Jihoon's), Jihoon was not who he ended up with. This is much easier to determine when looking back, of course, but it’s still the truth.

They stayed friends for the rest of university. Seungcheol graduated with his degree in Economics. Jihoon stuck around to get his Master’s in Music Composition. And soon, they went from being friends to being old friends, and at this point Seungcheol hasn’t heard from him in months? Maybe years. He’s not sure.

Point being: he did not know Jihoon was even dating anyone, let alone dating anyone seriously enough for them to get engaged.

“This is kind of insane,” Seungcheol says to Jihoon over the phone. He’s in his apartment now, shuffling through the rest of his mail. “You realize this is kind of insane, right?”

“What? That we’re adults who get married now? Or that, I, specifically, am getting married?”

“Both,” Seungcheol replies.

“Ouch. Was I really that awful of a boyfriend that you can’t believe someone would want to marry me?” Jihoon needles Seungcheol in return.

“That’s not what I meant,” Seungcheol argues. He massages his temples. He has had a very, very long day at work and now he’s having a very, very long evening at home. “You know that’s not what I meant.”

“Yes,” Jihoon chuckles. “It’s just fun to tease you.” There are a few beats where neither of them speak, then Jihoon continues: “The ceremony is on Jeju Island, by the way. I don’t know if you’ve actually opened the invitation or you called me with this existential crisis as soon as you saw it was from me.”

Jihoon knows him too well, still. After all these years.

“Yeah.” Seungcheol says, pretending like he knew this already. “Yeah, I’ll be there.”

“Good. You’ll have to mail the invitation back, for formality's sake, by the way. Should I put you down for a plus one?”

Seungcheol guffaws.

The thing is, for a good while Seungcheol assumed the next wedding he would be attending was going to be his own.

This was months ago, of course. It’s been over half a year since he and Wonwoo called things off. Over half a year since that painfully awkward conversation Seungcheol had to have with his parents and every awkward text message he had to send or respond to after that. It’s been over half a year, but Seungcheol hasn’t really broken the habit of it.

There are still days where he will unconsciously attempt to fidget with a ring on his left hand that is no longer there. There are still mornings where he wakes up and expects to see someone sleeping beside him, or at least their impression in the unmade bed, their scent lingering behind; a token of affection, a promise to return. There are still nights where he makes too much dinner for just one person. On those nights his apartment (and it’s not even the apartment they once lived in together, neither of them could bear to live in it once things were over) feels especially too big and empty, too sad and lonely.

He’s trying his best, okay? Whenever he gets half-drunk and mopey around his friends they all act like he’s not trying his best. It’s just — he and Wonwoo were together for a long time. They loved each other, they really did, and sure, sometimes love and compatibility aren’t the same thing, but they had convinced themselves that what they had was enough, and that it was all they needed, and that they were happy.

And maybe that’s where the problems started in the first place. Because you shouldn’t have to convince yourself of those things, they should be things you just _know_.

**1.**

It’s humid on Jeju Island.

It’s good weather to get married. The sun is warm and not hidden by any clouds in the sky. The sea keeps the heat from being too stifling, but still — sweat drips from Seungcheol’s hairline down his spine, even with him only dressed in light khaki shorts and a thin button-down, unbuttoned to expose maybe a little more of Seungcheol’s chest than he is used to.

Listen: if he’s going to get laid anywhere, it’ll be at a destination wedding. With all the warm beaches and free alcohol and inhibitions at all time lows.

Jihoon’s husband-to-be is a man at least a foot taller than him named Mingyu. His parents own a small travel company that caters, specifically, to the absurdly wealthy. Which means they are absurdly wealthy themselves. Seungcheol would have been able to infer this without ever being told; it’s obvious from the beach-side hotel that’s been rented out for the wedding, from the all-weekend long open bar and from the kind of champagne they're serving. From the way all the guests are dressed that weird sort of beach formal that masquerades as casual.

Seungcheol nurses a beer, sitting on a bar stool with his ankles crossed, feeling largely out of his element. He’s terrified someone might ask him what he does, forcing him to try and explain financial risk analysis to someone who probably doesn’t really care, and only wants him to stop talking so they can speak instead. Or, worse: someone will ask him how he knows Jihoon and Seungcheol will have to answer _we were friends in college_ in a way that’s confident enough to not inspire any further questions.

Seungcheol hears him before he sees him. And he may actually _feel_ him before he hears him. There’s this aggressive swoop in Seungcheol’s gut all of a sudden, and later Seungcheol will think that was maybe the universe trying to save him from something. Trying to preserve any semblance of a good time Seungcheol thought he might have been able to have this weekend.

But then —

But then a very, very familiar voice that Seungcheol has tried very, very hard to forget says, “Seungcheol?”

The thing about starting at the beginning of a story, Seungcheol has learned, is it is hard to figure out exactly what that means.

People ask questions and sometimes the answer is a story; it is a long anecdote, with peaks and valleys, but it is still only a piece of a larger whole. If he wants to sit down and say, _okay, here’s the story of me and Wonwoo, I’ll start at the beginning_ , with his hands folded into his lap — well, what exactly quantifies a beginning?

Is it the first time Wonwoo kissed him, after a party thrown by a bunch of the Literature majors? A time of night that was rapidly approaching morning, both of their mouths sour with beer and their hands cold from the chill in the air. Is it the way Seungcheol’s own pillow tasted when he bit down on it, Wonwoo’s hands on the dip of his back, his nose in Seungcheol’s hair? Or, is that all better left unsaid because it doesn’t matter. Maybe the beginning is when they started dating, for real, or maybe it’s when Wonwoo brought Seungcheol home to meet his parents. Maybe it’s the day they moved in together, before they bought a bed frame or kitchen towels or a shower curtain, but the future seemed bright and sprawled about around them. Maybe it’s obvious: maybe it’s the day that Seungcheol asked Wonwoo to marry him and Wonwoo had this look — this look that was all wrong, folded his face all the wrong ways — before it was gone in a second and he was saying _yes_ , saying, _okay, let’s get married_. But that — _that_ has always felt more like rising action. Like a mid-way point to the climax.

Maybe it starts even before all of that. Maybe this story starts with Seungcheol in high school, wondering why romance and hormones seemingly melted the brains of everyone around him. Maybe it starts in college, with Jihoon, and those months of self-discovery. Maybe it starts with the day Seungcheol met Jeonghan, or maybe it starts with the day Jeonghan sat across from him in the library and said, “I’m taking you to a party with the Lit majors, tonight, Seungcheol. If you read one more thing about Macroeconomics I think your hair will start turning grey.”

And if Seungcheol was to ever sit down and try and tell this story, in a way that followed a narrative in a linear sense, and he ever managed to figure out the beginning? Well, all that would do would be presenting Seungcheol with a second problem.

Because once you know the beginning, once you know where to start, there is always the question of: where does this story end?

Seungcheol thinks that _this_ — running into his ex, who he thought he was going to marry, until they called off the wedding, the living together, the being in love, at a wedding — might just be the worst thing that’s ever happened to him.

Smiling at Wonwoo after he calls Seungcheol’s name might be the hardest thing he’s ever done.

Wonwoo does not return the smile. He is wide-eyed and tight-jawed and he looks as beautiful as he did the last time Seungcheol saw him, his hair a little more groomed and a new pair of glasses. He stammers. “I — um — wow, I didn’t — how do you know Jihoon?”

Seungcheol almost laughs out loud. Instead, he bites his tongue, briefly, before he answers. “We, uh, we dated in college.” He almost adds _before you_ but of course Wonwoo knows that, of course he does. Wonwoo dated Seungcheol for most of his college career. And if he can’t put that together himself? Well, then, too bad.

Wonwoo lets out a little half-laugh, one that sounds more like the exhale of a breath that he had been holding. “Oh,” he rubs at the back of his neck, “me too.”

“What?”

“Yeah, we, uh,” Wonwoo laughs awkwardly again, “we were seeing each other for a bit — after, after you and I — before he met Mingyu, I mean.”

God, has Jihoon invited all of his exes to his wedding? Somehow, Seungcheol is not surprised. Somehow, that seems like exactly the kind of thing Jihoon would do. He wonders, idly, if when he gets married he’ll invite Wonwoo. And then he can’t abandon the thought fast enough.

The thought and the entire conversation, actually.

“I have to go,” Seungcheol says and he hopes it sounds confident. He hopes it doesn’t just sound like he’s running away. He hopes Wonwoo has forgotten how well he used to know Seungcheol, or has become willfully ignorant, because the Wonwoo who was in love with Seungcheol and Seungcheol loved in return would be able to see right through him. “I — have to iron some shirts. For later. Okay? It was nice seeing you, Wonwoo.”

His name feels like a cough drop in Seungcheol’s mouth; a balm and a burn all at once.

Confusion mars the planes of Wonwoo’s face — confusion and hurt — and Seungcheol almost feels bad. “Okay,” he agrees with words that don’t match his tone, “okay. Listen, I don’t really know anyone else here so if you — if you’re not here with someone else —”

Seungcheol is already up and leaving. “Goodbye, Wonwoo,” he waves gingerly, backing away. “It was nice seeing you, really. It was. Bye.”

Seungcheol gets halfway back to his room before the guilt starts to set in. By the time he’s inside of it, it is an ugly stone in his gut that makes him feel heavy. He collapses onto the bed.

He does not think about how Wonwoo said he didn’t know anyone here and what that implies. How that means he didn’t bring anybody, no plus one, and how Seungcheol knows Jihoon must have offered. He does not think about how they are, seemingly, both single and all the things that colour their shared history. He does not think about any of that. Really. He doesn’t.

That night, Seungcheol drinks one of the eighteen dollar champagne bottles from the hotel minifridge and falls asleep on top of his sheets, still wearing all of his clothes.

He dreams of Wonwoo’s mouth, of Wonwoo’s eyes and his hair and his hands. He dreams of Wonwoo, backdrop a bright orange sunset, and when Wonwoo looks at him and smiles in a way that makes his eyes crinkle, he’s looking at Seungcheol through his new glasses.

**2.**

At breakfast, Seungcheol drinks two mimosas.

The buzz in his brain as a result somehow convinces him to not spend the day hiding out in his room, avoiding Wonwoo until he has absolutely no choice but to attend the wedding ceremony tomorrow. Or, he could not go at all. Just pretend he’s on vacation. Sit on the beach and get a sunburn and be whoever he feels like pretending to be, a person with no past and no future, a person who has been nowhere and is going nowhere.

But Jihoon would never let him live it down. And the worst thing to ever gift Lee Jihoon is something to hold over your head.

It is only 12PM when Seungcheol orders a third drink.

“Tell me you didn’t do this on purpose.”

Jihoon has the nerve to look incredulous when Seungcheol says it to him. He poses a hand against his chest like, _who, me?_ , in the most overt display of mockery Seungcheol thinks he’s ever been subjected to.

“Jihoon,” Seungcheol sighs, defeated. “Did you plan this before or after the plus one thing?”

“I didn’t plan anything,” Jihoon raises his arms in what is — again — a mockery of surrender. “Anything that happens this weekend is purely coincidental.”

“Jihoon, you have to understand that,” Seungcheol shakes his head, bites his lip. How does he put all of this into words? The timeline that spans several years, the mess of emotions, the way that Seungcheol doesn’t know how to break far away enough from Wonwoo to just not care about any of these things. How to look at Wonwoo and not feel the vice grip around his heart and lungs, to not be reminded of — well, everything. “We were going to get married. And now we’re not. Okay?”

This seems to make Jihoon downright perturbed, with the way he raises a single eyebrow and kisses his teeth. Seungcheol has never known anyone more stubborn, or more determined to get what they want, or more annoyed when people don’t want to simply nod their head and follow.

“So?” Jihoon asks. “You don’t have to pretend you don’t know each other.”

He continues, “just because someone isn’t in your life anymore doesn’t mean they were never an important part of it.”

Seungcheol’s orange juice and champagne buzz has faded come time for the rehearsal dinner, but there are waiters who flit around pouring glasses of red and white wine from bottles so it’s okay. It’s fine. Seungcheol can do this.

No. It’s not fine. Seungcheol cannot do this. Because it turns out that Wonwoo has been given a seat at Seungcheol’s table.

Seungcheol seriously considers standing up in objection at Jihoon’s wedding tomorrow in retaliation.

They are quiet for a long while. Wonwoo looks awkward, picking at his cuticles and keeping his eyes away from Seungcheol. But he looks good. He has always looked good to Seungcheol. First thing in the morning when Wonwoo would wake up next to him, late into the night when Wonwoo would fall asleep next to him on the couch. He looked beautiful the day Seungcheol asked him if he wanted to move in together and he smiled. He looked beautiful the day Seungcheol asked him to marry him, even with the uncertainty that flickered across his face. He looked beautiful the day he sat Seungcheol down and explained to him they couldn’t get married anymore, Wonwoo couldn’t marry Seungcheol, and had handed Seungcheol back the ring. How unfair is that? That Seungcheol still thought Wonwoo looked good on the day he broke Seungcheol’s heart.

Jihoon’s words poke at Seungcheol’s thoughts like hornets from a kicked nest. He thinks _important part of it_ , he thinks about _pretend you don’t know each other_. He thinks about the look Wonwoo had given him the night before, when Seungcheol left him at the bar, and how he said he didn’t know anyone else here. He thinks about how he could draw the shape of Wonwoo’s mouth from memory, how he could identify his body from just the smattering of beauty marks across his back.

Seungcheol thinks way too much, over and over, until his mouth is moving without him willing it.

“Wonwoo,” he calls, and the name feels equal parts foreign and familiar. Wonwoo looks up at him. Seungcheol isn’t sure what to say; he didn’t go into this with any sort of plan, what do you say in this sort of situation? So all he says is, “how have you been?”

Things start to feel simpler after that.

It’s like the air gets thinner, lighter, and Seungcheol can sit across from Wonwoo, talk to Wonwoo, and breathe a little easier. It’s like they are old friends, and it’s that simple, to just pick up where you left off with someone. Seungcheol can’t decide if this is better — the universe where he and Wonwoo were never a powder keg waiting to blow — or if he treasures the time he spent with a man who doesn’t love him anymore too much to forget it.

They drink two glasses of wine each. They are both nursing a third when Wonwoo says, “did Jihoon put you up to this?”

Seungcheol shakes his head because no, not really. Maybe Jihoon wasn’t quite lying when he said that anything that happened from this was just coincidence, just stretching the truth.

“No. He didn’t. But it’s nice talking to you again, Wonwoo.”

_Remember the days where we were each other’s past, present and future?_

“It’s nice talking to you again too, Seungcheol,” and Wonwoo isn’t one to blush, only in very specific situations, but he flushes, just a little, pink colouring his slightly tanned skin. “My mom asks about you sometimes, y’know.”

That sort of hits Seungcheol like a ton of bricks. It’s easy to compress a relationship to just the two people involved in it. You tend to forget there are people on the outskirts, invested.

“Oh,” Seungcheol squeaks. “What do you say to her?”

Wonwoo looks embarrassed. “I lie, mostly,” he confesses. “She thinks we still talk. I just make stuff up when she asks.”

“Oh,” Seungcheol repeats lamely. “Well, I’m sorry I’m forcing you to lie to your mother.”

“It’s okay,” Wonwoo shrugs. “At least I’ll have something real to tell her this time.”

They both drink more. They end up on the same side of the table, instead of opposite. Wonwoo laughs at something Seungcheol said that can’t really be that funny, exposes the long column of his throat, and reminds Seungcheol of what it used to look like when he would put bruises on it.

(All this time apart and Seungcheol doesn’t think he’s ever stopped dreaming about it. Maybe that’s part of the problem. It’s been months and Seungcheol still dreams of Wonwoo’s mouth, the space between Wonwoo’s legs, the soft skin and firm muscles of his thighs, the dusting of hair that starts at his navel and descends lower and lower still. The way Wonwoo would thread his fingers into his hair and tug methodically. The way Wonwoo would swallow all Seungcheol’s moans into his own mouth like he was starved. The bright flush that would spread across Wonwoo’s cheeks just before he would —)

Seungcheol’s not sure why he does it. Maybe it’s the alcohol. Maybe that’s not a good enough excuse. Maybe it’s because the weekend has felt like it’s been building to this; cresting like a wave, destined to break. Maybe it was always going to be like this and Seungcheol has always been powerless against it. The alcohol just makes it easier to bring previously erected walls down, to break previously established rules.

Seungcheol circles his thumb and forefinger around Wonwoo’s wrist. Wonwoo looks up at him — and the look on his face is surprised, but it's the kind of surprised when you’ve been thinking about something for a while and you just never supposed that it would, never thought it could, happen.

“Do you want to come to my room?” Seungcheol asks.

Wonwoo doesn’t say anything, for a short moment that feels stretched as thin and long as possible to Seungcheol. Seungcheol’s blood rushes through his ears. Under the frames of his glasses, Wonwoo’s cheeks are pink.

“Okay,” Wonwoo finally says. “Take me to your room.”

**3.**

Almost a year later and Wonwoo still kisses the same way; like he’s afraid whoever he is kissing is perpetually slipping away from him, and he is desperate to keep them near.

He kissed that same way the entire time he and Seungcheol were together. Maybe that’s why Seungcheol didn’t notice — didn’t notice when they began to evaporate in each other’s grips, pulled away, and ended up on opposite sides of a very, very long bridge, with the waters troubled below.

Wonwoo grips the sleeves of Seungcheol’s sweater tightly, his knuckles white. His mouth is hot against Seungcheol’s, each of them a mess painted with red wine.

It reminds Seungcheol of the first time they kissed; messy and lustful, just outside of Seungcheol’s student housing. It was after a long party and a long walk, and Seungcheol felt like he spent even longer than both of those things wrestling in his own head, wondering if this was really going to happen or not.

(It is so easy to fall back into the things you know well: like falling down a set of stairs you’ve taken for years, or maybe like falling in love. Familiarity mistaken for safety, and then having the rug pulled out from underneath.)

Wonwoo does not pull away from Seungcheol’s mouth as he lays Seungcheol against his still-made bed, just follows, biting at Seungcheol’s bottom lip and pushing Seungcheol’s legs apart at the inner thighs. The window is still open, from earlier this afternoon, and when the wind rolls through it, it parts the curtains and raises goosebumps along Seungcheol’s exposed skin. Wonwoo’s hands follow the chill and his palms feel burning hot as they do.

Then, Wonwoo’s mouth is hot against Seungcheol’s cock through his boxers after he gets his shorts off too. Seungcheol collapses against the mattress, arms already too weak to hold himself up. It’s been so long —

“I’m not going to last,” Seungcheol is breathless when he says it. He can’t even gaze down at Wonwoo, can’t imagine how he must look wetting the fabric that Seungcheol’s hard-on is pressed against with his tongue.

“Then we should get started, hmm?” And just like that, Wonwoo is pulling Seungcheol’s boxers far enough down his legs so he can kick them off, and then he’s putting Seungcheol’s cock in his mouth.

Seungcheol is right — he doesn’t last long. Wonwoo takes time with every inch of Seungcheol’s cock, but as soon as Seungcheol feels himself hit the back of Wonwoo’s throat, his toes are curling, and he barely has enough time to warn Wonwoo before he’s coming.

The sex itself is slow and quiet, the pair of them feeling the effects of all the wine wear off as they proceed. But they are too far gone to stop, reevaluate, and decide if all this primal pleasure is worth the downfall that will come tomorrow morning. No, instead of all that, Seungcheol watches Wonwoo finger himself open, straddling Seungcheol’s hips, and he pulls Wonwoo down to kiss him as Wonwoo slowly sits himself onto Seungcheol’s cock. Seungcheol wants to tell Wonwoo that this is so good, he is so good, he’s always been good, but all the words get lost in the press of their mouths. The breeze from the window does nothing to quell the sweat that accumulates on both their bodies, and does nothing to temper the blaze of heat tearing its way through Seungcheol’s gut and chest. It does nothing but serve as a reminder that the world continues to spin, and tomorrow will always come, and when this is over you will still have to face yourself in the mirror.

Seungcheol wakes, the morning of the wedding, and there is the unmistakable heat of a body pressed into his side. The window is still open, but there is no cool nighttime breeze to shift the curtains anymore. Between the heat, the weight of everything that happened the night before, the weight of Wonwoo’s body laying half on top of his — Seungcheol thinks he might suffocate.

He carefully extracts himself from underneath Wonwoo, skin sticky and sheets a mess around his legs. There is a headache steadily knocking against Seungcheol’s temples that’s going to let itself in and make itself right at home soon. Seungcheol slides to the edge of the mattress and tries to ignore it.

Seungcheol is pulling his boxers back on (mercifully, they were only half-hidden under the bed, and not somewhere like halfway across the room) when he can hear the ruffling of sheets behind him, the creak of a mattress under a new press of weight. When Seungcheol turns to look, Wonwoo looks back at him, hair a mess, glasses still on the bedside table, sheets pooled around his waist.

Seungcheol doesn’t know what to say, so all he says is, “good morning.”

Wonwoo blinks at him, the look of sleepiness still draining slowly from his face. He reaches over for his glasses and in the interim, an awkward silence stretches. All Seungcheol really wants to say is _I should go_ but this is his hotel room, so that’s not really an option, so instead he says to Wonwoo, “I think you should go.”

“Seungcheol, I —” Wonwoo reaches out to grab hold of Seungcheol’s wrist. Seungcheol takes a step further away from the edge of the bed and slips away from it. Wonwoo looks _hurt_ , he looks _upset_ and that’s not fair because —

“Wonwoo,” Seungcheol breathes, heart doing double time, batting against his ribcage. The headache has bloomed itself across Seungcheol’s entire forehead. “Wonwoo, you can’t do this, it’s not _fair_.”

“What did I do?”

“Everything,” Seungcheol replies. “You’re the one who didn’t want to — who said we couldn’t get married anymore. You’re the one who left.”

Wonwoo reels back as if Seungcheol struck him. “I — why are you holding that over my head?”

“You broke my fucking heart.”

Wonwoo is so pitiable in this moment; his expression a crumbled mess of hurt and confusion, his ruined hair from the night before. The evidence of everything that went against Seungcheol’s better judgement splattered in purple and blue across Wonwoo’s chest, hidden beneath the sheets, permeating the very air in the room. Seungcheol will not pity him. Not when all he is saying is true.

“I was scared,” Wonwoo’s voice is very small when he says it.

This is not something he has ever told Seungcheol. There were a myriad of excuses the day it happened — the day Wonwoo broke the very foundation of their entire relationship apart, an earthquake shattering years of work. Wonwoo had said so many things: I don’t think I’m ready, I don’t think marriage is right for us, I don’t think this is going to work. But he never — not once, not before, not after — told Seungcheol he was _scared_.

“Don’t say that,” Seungcheol feels his hands form tight fists of frustration. “Don’t tell me I threw away three years of a relationship with the person I loved, the person I was supposed to be with _forever_ , because he was scared. And he couldn’t even tell me.”

“It’s the truth,” Wonwoo pleads. “I didn’t know how to tell you back then.”

“This isn’t fair.” Seungcheol wishes, desperately, that he was wearing more clothes. He feels exposed, physically and emotionally, and just the shield of his shirt and shorts would be a comfort. “You’re always the one — you’re always the one choosing. You chose to be with me, you chose to say yes to marrying me when you _didn’t even want to_ , you chose to end all of it. And yesterday, you made the decision that we were good and expected me to follow. And I did. Because I don’t know what’s good for me, I guess.”

Wonwoo looks ashamed. His gaze falls to his lap, where his fingers twist into a nervous knot. “I didn’t know you felt that way.”

“That’s the point,” Seungcheol shakes his head. “The point is that it doesn’t matter how I feel. At least, not to you. Because we’re not together anymore, Wonwoo, and we haven’t been together for months. And you were the one who decided that.”

It gets eerily quiet after that. The kind of quiet where you could hear a pin drop, the kind of quiet that both precedes and succeeds disaster. Wonwoo does not look at Seungcheol. Seungcheol can not look away from Wonwoo.

“I would very much like it if you let me alone, Wonwoo,” and when Seungcheol says it he means it in more ways than one.

Jihoon's wedding is beautiful.

There’s this way Mingyu looks at Jihoon, this quirk to the corner of his mouth, and a way that Jihoon looks at him in return, a way that he tilts his head, that convinces Seungcheol they really are the real deal. That they get to love each other forever. That they get a happy ending.

He wonders if when it’s right it’s always that obvious and if everyone knew, intrinsically, that Wonwoo and Seungcheol were never that for each other.

(And he thinks, no, that can’t be right. Seungcheol had never felt a love so big his heart wanted to burst until he was with Wonwoo. That had to count for something, right? Or maybe. Or maybe that was part of the problem, the lack of experience, the lack of comparisons to Seungcheol, to know when something was real versus simply masquerading as real. Seungcheol just wishes he could stop thinking about it. He wishes there was a way to lobotomize Wonwoo out of his head. An eternal sunshine of the spotless mind.)

There is a very brief moment, when they are all standing and Seungcheol is turned to watch the grooms return back down the aisle, that Seungcheol catches someone staring. Out of the corner of his eye, at first, but then more clearly. It’s Wonwoo, and when he notices he’s been caught he immediately averts his gaze but —

But Seungcheol doesn’t. He keeps watching. Fondness and nostalgia pang like an electric current in his gut, make his head feel fuzzy. At this moment, it’s almost like Seungcheol can picture it. Can imagine, with a clarity he never had of it before, what it might have been like to marry Wonwoo. To stand before people he cared about and people he barely knew and tell them all _I’ve never loved someone more than this person and now it’ll last forever_. To touch his palm to Wonwoo’s cheek and kiss him chastely, a promise for later, an oath taken between shared breaths. It would have been nice. Seungcheol would have been happy. Maybe Wonwoo would have been happy too.

He supposes, at this point, they won’t ever know.

**4**.

Over half a year ago, Seungcheol sat on his couch, took a long, deep breath, and called his mom.

She answered on the third ring. Seungcheol would have rather she let it go to voicemail.

“Eomma,” Seungcheol had begun, after she said hello, but then she cut him off.

“Cheollie,” she had sing-songed into the phone. She sounded so happy. Seungcheol could have imagined her; in the kitchen, the way the sunlight came in through the window in the mid-afternoon. Maybe she was cleaning, or cooking, or maybe she was reading, or sitting outside with Seungcheol’s father. Seungcheol had wanted to hug her so bad then. “How are you? How is Wonwoo? Have you given any thought to the venues I suggested? I know you two haven’t come up with any kind of date yet, but you both wanted summer, right? I think just before your birthday, Seungcheol. That would be nice. Are you still coming to dinner on Sunday?”

Seungcheol had taken a deep breath and he had tried to keep his voice from shaking when he had said, “We’re not getting married anymore, Eomma.”

Seungcheol’s mother had said nothing. She took a very, very long pause, almost as if she was processing the words, and she was very quiet when she had said, “what do you mean?”

“Wonwoo and I. He —” Seungcheol had choked, voice thick with emotion. “He decided he doesn’t want to get married.”

“Oh,” Seungcheol’s mother had sounded so impossibly sad, so worried and when she repeated herself, “oh, Seungcheol,” that was when Seungcheol had realized he was crying.

Seungcheol tries to enjoy himself at the reception. He indulges every older woman who calls him handsome and wants to dance and he entertains every small girl in pigtails and frilly princess dresses who blush when they try to make eye contact with him. You can see the ocean from where they’re hosting the reception, there are faded-yellow lights that look like captured fireflies hung everywhere, and it’s still an open bar. So Seungcheol fills his glass, again and again, and tries to lose himself in the crowd.

It’s after midnight when Jihoon finds him. Seungcheol is slumped in a chair at a table, tired in more ways than one.

“Dance with me,” Jihoon says, offering Seungcheol his hand. Seungcheol almost says no, but then Jihoon continues. “It’s my wedding,” he says, “so you can’t say no,” and how is Seungcheol meant to argue with that.

The music is soft and vaguely familiar. Jihoon looks beautiful — his hair coiffed loosely, a distinct glow to his skin that Seungcheol knows comes entirely from inner, absolute bliss. Seungcheol can’t believe this is the same Jihoon he knew in university, can’t believe this is the person who came to him when he knew so much less about himself. Who knew Seungcheol when he was less world-weary, more bright eyed and bushy tailed. But he is the same person. And now he’s married.

“How do you feel?” Seungcheol asks Jihoon, letting Jihoon lead their slow, uncomplicated dance.

Jihoon smiles. “It’s the best feeling ever, Seungcheol,” he says. “I don’t know how else to describe it.”

“I’m happy for you,” and Seungcheol is, really, but he can’t help but feel sort of sad.

There are so many unpulled, loose threads between him and Wonwoo; what if Seungcheol had tried harder? What if he had waited to ask Wonwoo to marry him, and it had been much more because it was all he wanted and less because he felt like it was something everyone else wanted from him? What if Wonwoo had told him, back then, how he really felt?

What if Seungcheol misses him? What if he loves him? What if Wonwoo was the first person Seungcheol ever loved and he never learnt how to love anyone else? What if the past doesn’t matter, and the only thing worth considering is the future? What if the future is more familiar than you could ever anticipate?

“How did you know?” Seungcheol asks Jihoon. His eyes drift somewhere above Jihoon's shoulder, to where Wonwoo sits, an abandoned piece of cake in front of him at a table, champagne flute clutched in his hand. “With Mingyu. How did you know?” He looks back at Jihoon.

“Loving someone,” Jihoon says, and Seungcheol watches him watch Mingyu dance with one of his little cousins, her feet standing on top of his. “Loving someone, especially forever, is pretty hard. But with some people — with the right person — it feels like it’s worth it. And that’s how you know.”

The day Seungcheol realized he was in love with Wonwoo had been largely inconsequential.

They were in the middle of midterms, many sleepless nights spent at the library, pouring over textbooks and worryingly blank word documents. Wonwoo had been spending a lot of nights at Seungcheol’s apartment, the one he shared with Jeonghan, and Seungcheol kept wanting to bring up moving in together the next semester, but he was too nervous.

Wonwoo had shown up to the library, half-asleep and wearing one of Seungcheol’s sweaters. Seungcheol had left him in his bed that morning, kissing the high-point of his cheek as he slipped out of bed for an early meeting with one of his professors.

“I have a coffee for you,” Seungcheol had said, sliding the iced americano across the table. And Wonwoo had sipped at it gratefully and, in return, told Seungcheol, “I brought you lunch,” and produced a sandwich from his backpack.

And it was that moment — the unplanned coordination, the proof of how much they each thought of the other person. It was that quiet, minute, moment in the library and the university that Seungcheol looked at Wonwoo and thought, _I’m in love with you_.

Seungcheol brought it up when he asked Wonwoo to marry him. He said to Wonwoo, “do you remember that time in the library? With the coffee and the sandwich?” because Seungcheol thought, no matter how small, there was no better evidence that they were meant to be with each other.

**5**.

Seungcheol finds Wonwoo, accidentally, in the bathroom.

To be caught face to face with Wonwoo seizes up Seungcheol’s heart, for just a second, before he thinks this might be some kind of divine intervention, and he leans into it.

“Hey,” he says to Wonwoo, who stands almost paralyzed at the sink, looking equal parts nervous and guilty. “I think I should say sorry.”

At that, Wonwoo’s brows furrow, but, after a moment, his expression becomes something softer. “Seungcheol,” he exhales.

“I don’t think I was being very,” Seungcheol hesitates to use the word _fair_ , after how many times he threw it at Wonwoo like an ice pick this morning. “I don’t think I was being very accommodating. Of your feelings.”

The faucet drips. You can almost hear the song playing outside of the washroom, if only the sound came through the door a little less hazily.

“No, Seungcheol,” Wonwoo shakes his head. “No, it wasn’t — I shouldn’t have expected —”

“No, no,” Seungcheol returns Wonwoo’s words back to him, taking a careful step closer. Anyone could come in at any time. Somehow, Seungcheol is confident no one will. “We just — we haven’t done this before, have we? Been around each other since — we were bound to fuck it up somehow.”

Wonwoo does not reply, not right away. Seungcheol smiles at him, easy and without pressure. Maybe it was okay, before, when Wonwoo made the decisions between them. Maybe that worked for them. Maybe that was right. And if it worked, who was Seungcheol to have a problem with it?

“I regret it,” Wonwoo finally confesses, exhaling like someone lifted a boulder off his chest. “Sometimes. No. All the time. All I’ve thought about all weekend is that I made a mistake. I — I hate it so much. But I’m so glad you’re here, too.”

It’s hard for Seungcheol to really track how this weekend ended up here; maybe it was just one of those things that was going to happen, one way or another, and Seungcheol was powerless to stop it. Maybe that’s okay. Maybe sometimes it doesn’t matter, and the way you feel rarely makes logical sense, maybe it’s just easier to take what life presents you in stride. Maybe there was a better way to do this. Maybe there wasn’t.

Maybe it doesn’t matter.

“It’s okay, Wonwoo.” Seungcheol is close enough to circle his fingers around Wonwoo’s wrist, the same as last night. It is familiar and carries the excitement of something new all at once. “It’s okay. We don’t have to talk about it all right now. We can talk about it later. It’s okay.”

Wonwoo melts into Seungcheol, collapses against the open circle of his arms and the warm firmness of his chest. Seungcheol wonders if Wonwoo feels the way he does now; the uncertainty of how it came to this and the calmness that permeates it anyway.

When Seungcheol kisses Wonwoo it is slow and closed-mouth, deliberate and uncomplicated. It feels like every past moment converging on the present, melting into something more, something better. Something that creates a future that neither of them could have predicted.

Wonwoo grips Seungcheol like he might evaporate at any moment, and Seungcheol grips him back. He hopes it says what he wants it too; a chorus of _I’m here, I’m here, I’m here_.

Maybe this story ends here. Maybe it doesn’t.

After all of this: Seungcheol thinks it might be nicer to just let it happen.


End file.
